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Simplified Naturalization · Processing TimesHungarian Citizenship Processing Times
No Hungarian post serving the United States publishes a processing time. Some posts elsewhere do, and they disagree with each other — Vienna says eight to twelve months, Belgrade and Skopje six to eight, Subotica at least four to six. Act LV of 1993 §17(2) gives the Minister three months to submit the application to the President of the Republic. Below: what starts that clock, and what stops it.
Last verified: September 6, 2026 · Maintained by The Next Passport (Warner Creates LLC).
This page is informational, not legal advice. The terms below are set out in Act LV of 1993 on Hungarian Citizenship; figures published by individual Hungarian posts outside the United States are reported with their provenance and are not an estimate for your case.
| Application fee | Free — No application fee for simplified naturalization |
| Statutory deadline, §17(2) | 3 mo statutory — for one step; see below for when its clock starts and stops |
| Where it is processed | Budapest Főváros Kormányhivatala (Government Office of the Capital City Budapest) — the designated Hungarian citizenship authority |
| Filing from the United States | Filed with a career Hungarian consular officer in the US, processed by Budapest Főváros Kormányhivatala, and decided by the President of the Republic on the proposal of the minister responsible for citizenship affairs |
| Language | Intermediate-level (középszint) two-way Hungarian — no exam or certificate; assessed by conversation with the consular officer |
| Legal basis | Act LV of 1993 on Hungarian Citizenship, §4(3) (simplified naturalization) |
What starts the clock, and what stops it
Act LV of 1993 §17(2) gives the Minister three months to submit the application to the President of the Republic. Two details change what that means in practice. The clock does not start at your consular appointment: §17(4) runs it from the day the file reaches the citizenship authority in Budapest, and lets it be extended by a further three months in justified cases. And §17(5) stops it entirely for four periods — a document request (hiánypótlás) until you answer it, any suspension, an opinion under §19(3)(d), and any record request sent to another authority or state body until the reply arrives. That third exclusion is the one that bites: §19(3)(d) lets the authority ask the notary, district office, consul, guardianship, immigration or asylum authority for an opinion, and requires it to ask the police and the competent national security service, who have sixty days under §19(3b) and can take sixty more. On the far side, §16(2) gives the post thirty days from the certificate's arrival to notify you of the time and place of the oath. No Hungarian post serving the United States publishes a processing time. Some posts elsewhere do, and they disagree with each other — Vienna says eight to twelve months, Belgrade and Skopje six to eight, Subotica at least four to six. None of them serves a US applicant, so treat them as evidence that Hungary has no single answer rather than as an estimate for your case.
Source: Act LV of 1993 on Hungarian Citizenship (net.jogtar.hu).
For oaths taken at the New York consulate, the consulate writes that «az okirat megérkezése után pár hónapon belül sor kerül az esküre (nyáron és év végén a várakozási idő hosszabb lehet)» — the oath takes place within a few months of the naturalization certificate's arrival at the post, and the wait can be longer in summer and at year end. New York consulate
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Start your Hungarian checklist →Not legal advice. The statutory terms above are set out in Act LV of 1993 on Hungarian Citizenship; the posts' figures are reported, not predicted. Consult a licensed Hungarian citizenship attorney before relying on this summary for any specific decision.